hi jim, i stumbled onto your build thread recently... read it through... awesome pics!!! that thing is gonna rock! cant wait to hear it! hint, hint...

 

Me too! When I finally get it in and running, you can be sure that I'll be taking video.

 

Note to self: Don't bother measuring pushrod lengths if you're going to write their length in Sharpy until you're ready to clean them with brake cleaner first, otherwise you get a bag full of blue pushrods with no legible writing on them.

So last night I re-measured them after cleaning them with brake cleaner, and lined them up in order of length. I matched these to the 16 corresponding valves based on the measurements I made with the pushrod length checker. This allowed me to line up the longest pushrods with the valves that needed the longest, and the shortest with the shortest. As a result, I wound up with a lifter preload variation of about +/- .005", with a maximum preload of .050 and a minimum of .042. This preload value may give me a little valvetrain noise, but at least I'll know that my valves are opening fully. These LS7 lifters seem to have a pretty generous compression range. After I tightened my pushrods down, I could lift them about .2" or .25" off the top of the valve stem by compressing the lifter.

 

Very very nice build and great attention to detail. Keep up the good work

 

Looks like I forgot to update this last week. Although my progress was minor, it kind of marked a milestone. I got my pushrods installed, which officially makes the motor "Done". I've ordered the rest of the parts I need to complete my f-body accessory drive, and those should be here soon. In the meantime, I've been working on the 350 that I pulled out of the car, in preparation of swapping it into my GTA after a head swap. For anybody that's interested in following that build, I started a thread here:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...ml#post5210561

In any case, I'll leave this post with a pic of some pushrod candy. These are my 3/8" Manton pushrods after I labelled their lengths again. After I re-measured and marked their lengths, I compared them to the measured heights of all 16 locations, and matched them up so that the longest & shortest corresponded with the longest & shortest measured values. By doing that, I was able to minimize the stack-up of tolerances that I would have had if I just randomly installed them.

 

You have some serious attention to detail!

 

Thanks dude. Part of my attention to detail is to compensate for my lack of experience. A professional builder knows what things are issues and what aren't. For me, it's a learning experience every time I do something, so I take my time, measure it, and understand it. Though still slow, my 350 upgrade and my 302 upgrade are going much faster.

 

Damn Jim, this is a great thread. It's given me alot of inspiration for my LQ9 build. AWESOME attention to detail!!

 

Any progress?

 

anything new